News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1887-11-03

WAKEFIELD, KAN, Sept. 16, 's7

EuttOTS NSUS |Nk LttC%cH.
We are having nice weather here
Just now, though a week or ten days
ago it was very disagreeable, raining
nearly every day, and the tempera-
ture changing from 10S to 20 degrees
about every other day. That is the
kind of weather that produces good
old fashioned colds. Happily such
weather is the exception, and not the
rule, in sunny Kansas. We had the
most favorable spring for corn here
that Kansas has seen for years, and
until July 10 corn looked as if we
would have an immense crop, some of
it beginning to tassel and silk out
then. But from July 5th until Aug.
I'd not drop of rain fell, and by the
goth of July a good deal commenced
to roll up during the day, but would
look all straight in the morning, after
the cool of the night; but as it kept
on without rain it got so it did not
! unroll at night and soon began to
turn white. About this time the chinch-
bug got into it from the wheat and oat
fields that had been harvested, and
that was a 'ssettler" for great deal
of the upland corn. The bugs liter
ally covered the stalks of corn from
the ground up two or three feet, so
you could not see the stalk at all, and
they sucked the juice of the corn as
fast as it come up, letting none of it
60 up to reach the ear OF corn. 10
cap the climax, on the 29th of July
the wind blew from the south all day
about as hot as the air from an oven,
which almost baked the corn. never
experienced what they call hot winds
out here until that day. can say
positively that the wind was hot not
aearma, on July 20. The I'd day of
August we had quite heavy raiu and
corn that was on ground protected by
bluffs or timber, came along all in
good shape, but the rain was too late
for the greater part of it. If the rain
had come ten days sooner there would
have been longer ears of corn in this
country and shorter faces.
Oats are fair crop, hardly up to
the average, the average being about
20 bushels to the acre. Wheat was
nearly failure on account Of chinch-
bugs, and hundreds of acres were not
cut at all. Potatoes are not harvest
ed enough to judge very we'll, but the
crop is going to be short. There
were more peaches here than there
has been for several years. Apples
are considered plenty, but small and
wormy on account Of the dry wealth
er. Hay has turned out in good
shape, both as to quantity and quail
ity. The late rains brought it along
finely and pasturing is way ahead of
last fall. Corn is now selling for so
cents per bushel and oats from 20 to
80 according to quality. Hogs are
$40 to 400 per hundred and cattle
are drug at l 1-2 to 2 cents per
pound. 1 have been at several sales
this fall and good young COWS sell
from SIS to S23; calves from 81 to
81; stock hogs weighing from 100 to
l60 pounds, from $3.50 to So each,
and with reluctant buyers at that.
Parties are now offering So per month
for wintering cattle, when S1.25 is
top price for ordinary seasons. The
corn failure is tie cause of the de-
rangement in prices of cattle, etc.,
though / think when the corn is all
harvested there will be a good deal
more than people anticipate. There
are several farmers / know near here
that have low, protected land who will
get so bushels to the acre on their
entire crop of 60 to 100 acres, but
such cases are rare, though there are
a great many who will have to 20
bushels per acre and a great many
that won't have an ear on an acre.
Business is rather dull in town now.
The city is putting up a new school
building to cost about $4,000 and sew
eral dwellings are being put up, but
nothing in comparison to last year.
A great many of the farmers are off
working on the new Rock Island rail-
road that is being extended from
Manhattan, Kan, to Denver, Col.
The contractors hire everybody that
comes looking for job. The price
paid for man and team is $3.50, and |
for man, $3.50 to 81. They use
scrapers to grade with here; no carts
are used as in the East. Some OF the |
scrapers are on wheels and you can |
load the same as a common scraper,
then raise them from the ground and |
draw them along the same as a cart.
This does away with the shovel to
load with, making it great deal quick
er business. The bed is nearly all
graded through this county now, and
We expect that by Christmas, perhaps |
by Thanksgiving, to hear the whistle |
of the locomotive on the Rock Island
railroad. The bonds for the road car
ried by big majority, as they always
do out here. They are ready to give
their last cent to any railroad COM
pany and then kick because the rail-
road rates and taxes are so high. |
Well they will very likely learn some
thing by experience. More anon.
W. A. DEMERITT.